Why are we here?

@suebailey1 : The fact that 'millions believe' is irrelevant to the truth or otherwise of an idea. After all, ask how many must believe before something magically becomes true - is a million enough? How about a million and one - would that do it? There would have to be a magic number at which point the laws of the universe could be ignored!

I must say it tickles me to think that when I die, having had no children, it puts an end to an unbroken line extending back millions of years to the very first life on this planet - as with every other one of us.

@papaoscar - 'Not by accident?' That would argue for an entity with some intent, some agenda - for which there is surely not a shed of evidence?
Otherwise, I'm with you all the way!

Elegran that is so true, what you said, "we would not know that we were not there".

Quite right papaoscar!

From my viewpoint at the age 70+ I am drawn to certain conclusions:

1)that the universe is a vast cauldron of energy and forces, enormous amounts of matter, and vast quantities of space, all in an endless timeframe. The lot of it in a state of constant upheaval and change.

2)that lifeforms, including ourselves, have somehow evolved out of that universal cauldron (presumably not by accident) and that at some point in this universal upheaval the spark of life somehow took place. We may only be at the early stages of that development.

3)that concepts such as good and bad exist but are are only discernable by us. The rest of the universe exists without any feelings.

4)that my part in all this is entirely transitory and of little consequence

5) that its now time to reward myself with a large pan-galactic gargle-blaster!

Aka when we ask, 'Why did that happen?' In the case of an accident, we may be considering human motives or looking at a series of events which may or may not appear to be related and resulted in the accident. In either case, what we are really asking is 'How?'. 'Why did Alice drive too fast' is a genuine why question. 'Why did the car skid' may be formulated as a why question but it really means 'How did the car come to skid' ie what circumstances existed which resulted in the skid.

The second poem was wrong as the stars are not cold. Our sun is a star, and is definitely not cold.

I think you are taking it too literally.

Oh please - no poems. Cop out.

I shall post a poem if I please, especially when it is pertinent. Given that I have already addressed the question and will, no doubt, address it again, how is posting a poem about the very thing being discussed a cop out

Our view of our existence is from now backwards. It is as though we are sitting on a tiny twig at the very growing edge of a huge tree, trying to see down a fibre-optic cable in the core of that twig. The route of the cable seems inevitable in that direction, it leads irrevocably from us down the main trunk to the origin, so we believe that it was installed as a unique link. We are unique and the pinnacle of the growth of the tree. There must be a reason for it.

But if we were looking in the opposite direction, we would find it very hard to follow a route which led to our current position. There are trillions of branches, one for each possibility from the first moment the universe existed. Before each point where one outcome happened rather than another, it was not possible to predict which it would be.

Had any of the divergences gone a different way, the universe would now be on a different twig. We would not be on that twig, looking back, and we would not know that we were not there.

The very fact that we can wonder at our existence we take (provisionally) as evidence that we do exist, but it is not proof that there was any intention that we exist, any more than a photo of a lucky lottery winner is proof of an "intention" that that person would win millions. There are many other possible and totally random scenarios where they did not.

(Yes, I know that the lottery winner is chosen by a complicated algorhythm which was devised by a clever brain and someone will now say that the chance happenings that took us from chaos to a wonderful universe must have been devised by an even more clever one.)

@Ana - Doyle was a strangely credulous man, who happily believed in fairies and spirits, but I think you may have been thinking of Houdini, who set up a password that he would use after his death if he could put in an appearance at a seance... they still hold those seances, as a sort of memorial to him - but he has never come back! Surprise, surprise...

Must go and walk the dogs. They exist therefore must be walked.

Agreed about the sound Lilygran but the physicality of the sound wave would still exist. Now Newist said if she did not exist there would be no universe. If she did not exist she would now see/know the universe but it would still exist as a physical entity.

'Why' is a question not an implication of purpose and there is a 'why' in any accident. Take a RTA as an example, the police spend time and resources on 'how' it happened and 'why' it happened. 'How' and 'why' are different. But asking 'why' does not imply a purpose unless the accident was deliberate.
God does not come into the accident of evolution any more than the RTA.

Aka you can define sound as something that exists only when there is an ear to hear it.

If you think there is no prime mover, that evolution is a series of accidents, there can be no 'why', only 'how'. 'Why' implies a purpose. If you believe life, the universe and everything has a purpose, you must believe in a purposeful origin, whether it's visitors from another galaxy, Gaia, God or a determined gene.

You are saying then if the apple falls from the tree and there is no one there to hear it then is no sound Newist

Well that just sparked a couple of hours discussion with my son. I've no idea why we are here, just that I am now two hours older.

'We're 'ere because we're 'ere' may not be quite as elegant as 'Cogito ergo sum' but means about the same, I suppose. I remember reading about a theory that life exists solely to be a carrier for our genes - they are the only survivors, and that once we've done our breeding we're as useful as an empty paper bag. Furthermore, I gather that modern science now accepts that space, time and matter are all one anyway and that parallel universes do exist. How good and bad fit in to all this I really don't know, let alone religion. Perhaps Star Trek is reality after all.

Another thought, if i did not exist, there would be no universe.

I said evolving is how we exist, not why

And it ought to be remembered that Darwin was not just a scientist but a respected philosopher too.

Do you see where I'm going lilygran ...not interested in the 'how' that's ancient history if you'll excuse the pun. It's the 'why' of evolution I'm querying...

No evolving isn't just a 'how' Newist it's also a 'why'. We as a species are here why? I'm not asking 'how' we evolved that would be simply following the evolutionary path that led to where we are today. I'm suggesting we evolved due to a series of accidents eg the extinction of the dominant species the dinosaurs. Had whatever led to their extinction not occurred....

Sorry to cut across the other philosophical thread but I was interested in exploring this concept with newist.

Didn't Sir Arthur Conan Doyle promise, while he was still alive of course, to communicate via seance after his death because he was so convinced that there would be an afterlife? He didn't succeed, as far as I know...